Barracuda Networks, a leading provider of cloud-enabled security and data protection solutions, today announced that MHM Services, Inc., a leading provider of healthcare services to government agencies, has selected Barracuda Essentials to protect its employees from advanced email threats. Faced with a growing number of threats, including ransomware and targeted phishing attacks, as well as strict HIPAA requirements, MHM selected Barracuda due to the flexibility, functionality, and cost savings to help securely and efficiently scale for hyper growth.

MHM currently employs more than 8,000 clinical, managerial and administrative professionals, and serves more than 330,000 individuals across 300 facilities nationwide. The MHM business model requires that its IT business operations remain flexible and able to scale up and down depending on the contracts in place at any given time. At the same time, the company was getting hit with phishing attacks that its previous email security vendor could not stop. As a long-time Barracuda Backup customer, the company was familiar with the central management capabilities via Barracuda Cloud Control that made it simple to protect its data and assets across multiple locations, devices, and users.

Before working with Barracuda, MHM was facing an increasingly diverse technology environment which was expensive and difficult to manage across multiple vendors and platforms, resulting in significant burden on its IT organization. By standardizing on Barracuda Essentials, MHM was able to add sophisticated Advanced Threat Protection to block ransomware and phishing attacks that could have put its customer privacy at risk. They also added Barracuda Cloud Archiving Service as a primary storage for data retention, in order to help meet HIPAA requirements. The MHM IT team was also able to streamline and offer a more user-friendly interface for eDiscovery and compliance searches, saving the IT and legal teams an estimated 8 -10 hours per week while simultaneously reducing legal spend. Barracuda Essentials gives MHM the ability to cost effectively scale up and down depending on the needs of the business – all managed from a single interface with Barracuda Cloud Control.

Advanced Threat Protection with Barracuda Essentials

Barracuda Essentials offers multi-level security including Advanced Threat Protection (APT), which protects against ransomware and phishing attacks, and Link Protection, which protects against typosquatting and malformed URLs. With ransomware and other targeted attacks on the rise, this capability is proving to be a requirement for organizations of all sizes. Barracuda’s ATP combines behavioral, heuristic, and sandboxing technologies to protect against zero hour and targeted attacks. Barracuda ATP automatically scans email attachments in real-time and suspicious attachments are detonated in a sandbox environment to observe behavior. In addition to blocking the attachment, the results are integrated into the Barracuda Real Time System.Barracuda Essentials also includes cloud archiving, which assists organizations with compliance and eDiscovery requests. This capability includes a cloud-based archive, granular retention policies, search, auditing/permissions, as well as mobile applications for end users to search and retrieve email at any time from any device.

Central Management with Barracuda Cloud Control

MHM’s small IT staff is able to cost effectively purchase and manage multiple Barracuda solutions and technologies from a single web-based interface via Barracuda Cloud Control. Barracuda Cloud Control leverages Barracuda’s global cloud infrastructure to give administrators a holistic view of all their Barracuda appliances and services, as well as the ability to centrally manage policies and configuration with minimal IT overhead. This central management capability allows them the freedom to focus on more strategic assignments such as evaluating and implementing new technologies.

Quotes:

“When I joined MHM about a year ago, the business was going through hyper growth.Our IT group was drowning in technology, and we didn’t have resources to support it, so we knew we needed to consolidate technology and vendors to make it easier to manage,” said Shant Tossounian, IT infrastructure & operations manager at MHM Services, Inc. “At the same time, we were getting hit with a high amount of phishing attacks, and in order to get the right protections in place with our previous vendor, it was going to cost more, both in money and time. We were using Barracuda Backup and the Barracuda Cloud Control management interface, so it was a no brainer for us in making the decision to move to Barracuda Essentials. Barracuda makes IT simple, while also giving us the flexibility we need for our business to scale.”

“As a healthcare services provider, we must remain compliant with HIPAA regulations in multiple aspects of the business, especially as we scale up and down per the demands of our business model,” explained Christie Nader, vice president of information technology at MHM Services, Inc. “During our evaluation of Barracuda Essentials, we found that it offered the security, compliance related features,and archiving we were looking for, delivered as a service in a cost effective manner. The cost and ease of use of Barracuda Essentials is important to me, as it will allow my team to remain tight and nimble as the company grows.”

“The rise in ransomware and phishing puts MHM’s critical systems, patient data, and reputation at risk,” said Michael Hughes, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Barracuda. “Barracuda Essentials adds an important layer of protection for MHM’s team and customers with features like Advanced Threat Protection to identify and block threats like ransomware and phishing. We designed Barracuda Essentials for customers like MHM who need that advanced protection, as well as an easy and flexible way to manage it across a growing number of users and devices, without impacting day-to-day operations.”